This article is dedicated to the sole purpose of demonstrating pure empathy for Zuckerberg and genuine care for the Facebook community in efforts to try to correct the numerous mistakes that are being made in the name of social networking!

Ranging from Facebook’s thrive to make more money using the Facebook beacon and moving on to the “automated stalking” news feeds and ending with the biggest joke of all: Facebook’s forced redesigns, Marc Zuckerberg seems to be proving, day after day, the fact that he suffers from what psychologists call “The God Complex”.

As defined by the Urban Dictionary: “The God complex (funny video) is a psychosis based in uncontrolled narcissism, inflated arrogance and a perceived need to subjugate and/or ridicule other individuals deemed to be inferior or unworthy. Some believe that “God complexes” are particularly common in arrogant, highly educated, worldly, or powerful people.”

In one of my previous graduate marketing courses discussing “Marketing Mistakes and Successes”, it was evident that the 3 C’s: Conceit, Complacency and Conservatism were and are still the main three reasons why great corporations might be drawn towards failure. Looking at Zuckerberg’s approach to changing and continuously making additions and new platforms introductions, we can safely say that he is as far away as possible from complacency and conservatism. But what about conceit? Is conceit taking over the way things work at Facebook?

Since conceit is directly related to The God Complex I have defined earlier, it seems that Zuckerberg is drowning in shallow waters!

Disregarding the fact that 94% of Facebook users “hate” the new Facebook redesign and the fact many articles were written and Facebook groups were created to attack what I’d like to call the “God-like position” Zuckerberg upholds by doing as he pleases and even more severely disregarding user’s needs and arguments repetitively, and finally exploiting users’ data for personal gains and adding options that only compromise privacy, all seem to point towards one direction: Zuckerburg’s pure and unarguable obsession with power!

Zuckerberg: We feel with you, we really do, but honestly we are not ready to surrender to your will, not yet at least! I believe that most bloggers know exactly what they are talking about when they say: “The Facebook’s new design sucks” and “It is time you listen to your users!”. I’d like to think that I have read enough articles and case studies that can show you the way to “social networking redemption”! With a little effort, you can easily do what large social networking sites such as Google, Yahoo and others have done by utilzing Beta development to gain better insights about whatever changes you are planning to introduce in order to give your “smart” users more options and breathing room!

I just want what is best for us, the people who count: the users who have made your success possible! And since your profile indicates that you’re a Harvard graduated and we all know that you are currently Facebook’s CEO, which in turn gives you power, I believe that you fit the profile of a person suffering the God Complex! Thus, since part of finding a solution is realizing the problem, I just thought I should pinpoint you to the right direction…

Almost 2 years ago, or maybe even before that, I started a Facebook account because everyone I knew was talking about it! I felt the need to check it out, see what all the fuss is about! In less than a month I had added and accepted around 200 “friends” and within a period of 3 months or so, my “friends” multiplied to 960 or so!

Now, since I had an already established blog which I used daily to publish my writings, and since this blog required a lot of time and attention and I didn’t have those, I didn’t mind the many “friends” and kept them there just to allow more people to view my writings and maybe even become regular readers.

After a while, I noticed that some people started adding me based on the profile picture I had placed and that in fact, they really had no interest in who I am or what I write about!

I started blocking people, deleting others and adding many to my limited profile list. You can imagine how some of those complained, others got upset and simply stopped contacting me!

Yet, I still was on Facebook… It helped me stay connected to real friends who lived in different countries.. It also helped me keep track of birthdays that I never seem to remember!

Then Facebook designers decided to change their interface! I hated it! I complained about it through my status feeds, I might have even written about it! All I wanted to do at that point was to deactivate my account but I couldn’t get myself to do so… I felt trapped: I needed to stay in touch with all those people and I needed my readers to keep track of my writings with the least effort possible but I didn’t want this interface!

Just recently, I suffered the same dilemma when Facebook designers decided to change the interface yet another time!

I feel caged!

If we think about it consciously, there may be a lot of factors that we are not very aware of that are able to “trap” us into never leaving this trap of social networking, and one main ones is peer pressure and the need to be in a crowd, a part of a group: the need to belong!

Nowadays, I hear people being shocked if they hear that “x” has no Facebook account! To them, it is natural to have it and abnormal to refuse to be sucked in to the chain of exposing your private life online and sharing it with everyone…

And now we come to the end of my story and the question remains: Will I ever be able to free myself from the Facebook chains?

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